Australia: building approvals for March, performance of services for April, TD inflation gauge for April

US: ISM services for April

Stocks to watch

RBC Capital Markets has reiterated its “outperform” recommendation on Sirius Resources. It has a $3.50 a share target price.

Deutsche Bank has cut Woolworths to “hold” after the release of its latest sales data. It has a $38 price target on the stock.

Morningstar has a “hold” rating on Mirvac Group with an unchanged fair value estimate of $1.70.

Currencies

The dollar index, a composite of six currency pairs, was down 0.01 per cent in late New York trade after rising about 0.40 per cent after April’s payrolls report showed a surge in new jobs and a big drop in the jobless rate.

“This keeps the Fed on track for tapering and for the first interest rate hikes in 2015,” said Anthony Valeri, investment strategist at LPL Financial in San Diego.

Commodities

Traders said gold's ability to hold above key technical support at $US1275 an ounce on Friday set the stage for reversing initial heavy losses that followed the latest US jobs data.

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The London gold market will be shut on Monday for the May bank holiday.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange closed at $US6719 a tonne, up 1 per cent. Trading volumes were low due to a holiday in China.

Benchmark three-month aluminium closed almost flat at $US1786 a tonne. The metal was underpinned by figures showing the US auto industry rebounded sharply in April from a bitter and extended winter.

United States

US stocks eased on Friday as concerns about more violence in Ukraine prompted profit-taking ahead of the weekend and offset optimism about the fastest job growth in more than two years.

All three major indexes posted gains for the week. The Dow was up 0.9 per cent, the S&P 500 was up 0.9 per cent and the Nasdaq added 1.2 per cent.

JPMorgan Chase & Co expects second-quarter revenue from bond and equity trading to decline by about 20 per cent from a year earlier, the biggest US bank by assets said in a regulatory filing.

Europe

European stocks dipped late on Friday as investors, wary that the confrontation over Ukraine could escalate over the weekend, booked recent gains spurred by an M&A wave.

Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland trebled its profit in the first quarter, beating analysts' expectations as it benefited from improved cost controls and a reduction in losses from bad loans.

AstraZeneca shares dipped 0.1 per cent after it rejected Pfizer's new indicative offer of 50 pounds per share, and some traders said Pfizer might have to raise its offer again up to the 55-pound level.

What happened on Friday

The sharemarket edged higher on Friday, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the local market declining over the week. The S&P/ASX 200 added 9.3 points, or 0.17 per cent, to 5458.1.

For last week, the benchmark lost 1.4 per cent, while the broader All Ordinaries Index also shed 1.4 per cent.

Westpac Banking Corporation fell 2.7 per cent to $34.87, with investors anticipating it will report a $3.6 billion half-year cash profit and announce a 90¢ interim dividend on Monday.

National Australia Bank dropped 4 per cent to $34.56. The market is tipping NAB will show a $3.2 billion half-year cash profit and announce a $1-a-share interim dividend when it reports on Thursday.